chronicled & illustrated

Dear Fellow Wrimos,

The half-way mark!!!
Does it feel good or depressing?
I guess that depends on how we’ve done so far. If you’re way ahead in the word count, it probably feels good. You’ve been on a roll and it shows. If you’re behind, it feels as if you might never catch up and two more weeks may not seem like enough time. If you’re like me and just hit the 25,000 mark, it feels FINE…but there are no fireworks. It just means two more weeks of hard core writing!

But I think how we’ve done so far is a bad predictor of how the rest of the month will go.

For me, Nano this year seems to turn on a dime. Yesterday was hard; today was a joy. In the same way, a free-for-all beginning that is fun to write, may not be so much fun as the plot thickens. And being way behind can be the biggest motivator of all. Nothing like a looming deadline to get us going.

Either way, whatever our word count now, and however it turns out, we can be proud and satisfied to have written a great deal more than most people do in a year (or more).

Mine is definitely half full.

Onward,
Nanc

This Jackson Pollock widget is one I found this morning on Michelle’s lovely blog: Lady Language. Thank you, Michelle! I saw the website (sorry, I don’t seem to have bookmarked it so I can’t link it right now) several months ago and I thought was so fun and funny, but I hadn’t seen the widget until this morning. I immediately got it for my very own and posted it on The PCQ.

Here’s a link to some real Jackson Pollocks.

To play with it, just pass your mouse over it. Click to get a different colour. That’s it. Splashing “Paint” without the clean-up.

I feel like I could use a nice long session of splashing real paint. Fingerpainting. Bodypainting. I need to break out a little. I’ve been writing almost everyday for two weeks now and it’s getting to me even though yesterday I didn’t write at all. I woke up early, worried about all the other things in my life that I’ve been neglecting—typical for NaNoWriMo. So I set out to do the ones I could. It was paper work and tax stuff (my favourite) and lots of little noodling things. Later, even though I had the time to write, I simply couldn’t get in that frame of mind again.

Today was gruesome. Not only did I know and could-not-forget that I had to write twice as much in order to catch up, I also felt like I’d written myself into several corners.

I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking when I had this character say that and the other do this! I knew that I could either go back and rewrite those things that were giving me fits or I could suck it up and figure out how to make it work for me. I decided on the sucking up choice. It remains to be seen if what I am writing will work or not, but it feels good that at least I didn’t run from my own choices. I’m going to go with them for now and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised at some future date.

A novel is like a puzzle. Do you do crosswords or sudoku? It can be like any kind of puzzle that’s a challenge. It starts off kind of fun and not too hard and then you get to a point where you have to really think and then, it gets very hard and the next step is to assume that somehow the incredibly asinine editors of that particular puzzle made a mistake and there’s no solution!!!! They must have goofed! It’s all wrong. No way to get it to work.

But then, another part of your mind kicks in and tells you that you are a silly goosehead and of course they didn’t screw it up. You realize that you have to work harder. Keep at it. Don’t give up. More than anything else, ASSUME you can make it work. Be confident in the fact that if you go at it from a different perspective or angle or state of mind, you will be able to find the solution. You’ll be successful and in the figuring it out part, you’ll have fun and be proud of yourself.

So that’s the stage of writing that happens in the second two weeks. If you find your novel is a giant challenging puzzle, keep working at it until you find out what the solution is. The editor never goofs! Silly head.

I don’t know what the title of this post means in this context but maybe I can figure it out as I write it. That kind of process goes along with the writing I do each November.

One upon a time, many years ago, I went to an Al-Anon meeting. An exercise was done where we each picked numbers from a coffee can. The numbers were from 1 to 12 and when our time came, we were to talk about that step in the AA doctrine. I was familiar with the Twelve Steps but only in a cursory way. I was new to this program and had no expertise or practice in doing any of the steps with the possible exception of Step One. I did know that one thing: I felt powerless to control anyone else’s choices. So when my time came, I said,

I got 11. Since I don’t even know what Step 11 is, I guess I just have to look at this as a reminder that I need to do Step 1, twice as often.

The group seemed to like that quite well.

So that’s where the title of this Day 11 came from. Perhaps it does relate to writing. Each day, I sit down and know only that my job is to achieve my word count. Of course, I want to write a good story. Of course, I want it to be interesting and cohesive, and well-written. I want it to build and to have not only a good plot but also fascinating sub-plots. I want it to be insightful and fun and imaginative and surprising.

But if I fill my mind with all those wants, it fills ME with dread. I don’t know how to achieve all that at once on any given day. If I think of all that, I will not get my book written. That’s why I love NaNoWriMo so much. It gives me a daily deadline and a reason to forget all that FOR NOW.

So when I sit down to write each day, I know only one thing: that I have to write at least 1667 words. On most days, I write something that pleases me to some extent. It’s never perfect. Sometimes it is drivel and I know that it will never make the finished version, but that’s okay because I’ve kept going in a forward direction. At least it shows me where I don’t want to go!

In a way, that’s like taking the First Step over and over again. Sit down and write. Tomorrow, do that again. Soon, I’ll have enough material to call it a first draft.

We worry about Step Two when we get there.

And on the Seventh Day: YOU CAN’T REST!!!!!

I’ve only just begun today’s writing, but I wanted to post this NuancNanoTip because it’s one I believe in greatly and which I’ve already used this year to my advantage.

I went into this November with a setting, characters and a world in a mess. Several plot threads were obvious and necessary but each day when I tried writing about one of them, I would get stopped. It seemed boring to write and like it would be dull to read (those two things go together!) and one day I let it keep me from writing altogether. That’s a HUGE no-no! Some old tapes wound around in my head telling me that I had to write this as planned or I’d be somehow hurting my efforts. That not writing it was backing away from something hard—and therefore, necessary.

Luckily, I find it pretty easy to ignore those kinds of mental lectures from the past.

I remembered several things. I remembered that it’s just a first draft. I remembered that if it’s hard to write, it might be because I need to change what I thought I was going to write and write something more interesting! That I might need to let it simmer a bit, find out more about what’s happening with all the characters and that there might be a twist-in-the-action I hadn’t thought of yet, that would let it be more fun to write and read.

So, I left in the partial muddle of a scene and skipped ahead to other things.

Surprising things have been coming from my fingertips; things I hadn’t planned but which are anything but boring to write. And just this morning, I’ve been able to re-approach the dastardly scene from a different angle. I feel so much better about it.
I was ready.

I have to get my cool back so I can write today.

I’ve been searching through my computer looking for files that are lost.

I’ve never been a tidy person. Try as I do, my actual paper files are not organized perfectly. I’m always behind on filing things and even I cannot remember whether I filed car insurance papers under “I” for insurance, “C” for car or “H” for Honda. But for all that, I can usually find things.

This morning I was searching for business cards I made in August or early September. I have a folder for these things. It’s labelled: EPIC/logos, letterheads, business cards. But they aren’t there. Sheesh! I can find other things I made at that time. But these are simply not where they are supposed to be. It’s so completely frustrating!

If I can’t rely on my computer to keep the things that I’ve filed in the place I tell it to file them, what the hell can a slightly disorganized person do?! I would ordinarily assume that I’d just wasn’t paying attention and that they’d gone into an alternate graphic folder but, no. I can’t find them. And it seems even more mysterious because there are five files, one for each Board member! How could five separate files disappear?

Sigh.

Anyway, I have to give up because I’m using all my writing time to search for files that aren’t essential right now. I just kept thinking that I’d find them, because I know they have to be there! Writing time is dwindling as I have a dentist appointment this afternoon. No end to the fun today!

Yesterday went pretty well. I continue to feel that I’m setting everything up and am not sure where the plot threads are, much less where they are going. But I seem to remember that this is First Week stuff. You have to get everyone in place and the backstory related without simply plopping it on the page in one huge dollop and you have to introduce the main characters and give them a setting that the reader can visualize. It’s not the most compelling part of writing a novel. That’s the problem. But that’s also the beauty of doing so much writing in a month. Get this set up (mostly) out of the way in a week rather than a YEAR at which point, most sane people would say, “Chuck this! It’s never going to go anywhere!”

I’m still slightly behind on word count and it doesn’t look promising that I’ll catch up today, but you never know.

Sorry for the missing computer folder rant. I needed it.

UPDATE:
The word count is now on track (though God Knows if the writing I did today is worth a single dnaldo (currency of the country Dnemz in the novel I’m writing).

And, more importantly, the files were found. They were in a back-up folder in the backcountry of my computer. I don’t how that happened but I found them not through any of the dozens of Searches I did but in Recent Files—though it was at least two months since I did them. Anyway, computer, it seems I owe you and apology. You kept my files and for that I’m grateful. That I can’t find them is, I admit, my fault, not yours. I’m sorry.

[edit: just found out these “tips” weren’t showing up properly on Internet Explorer. It didn’t matter previously because I had no visitors but now, suddenly, I do. Must spruce up the place. (wonder where THAT expression originated!) Anyway, this is unreadable I realize, but I had to reduce its size to keep the blog from looking so weird on IE. If you want to know what it says, first of all, Thank You for your interest! and secondly, clicking it will take you to flickr to see the original version. Cheers!]

I don’t know what’s going to happen today. Yesterday was a bust. I have excuses, but as it says above: don’t look back. I have the ability to write a LOT when I get going so I’m not worried—yet.

Today’s tip is an important one: begin where you feel a glimmer of inspiration (or at least, interest).

I seem to be hung up on one part of my story that isn’t feeling interesting to me. I realized this morning that I’ve been making certain assumptions about what is going to happen. But when I’ve started to write that plot line, I have internal resistance. Perhaps, I thought this morning on waking, that’s something I should trust rather than try to obliterate. Perhaps my assumptions are wrong. Perhaps if I write what seems interesting to me, I will work my way back to those plot threads that aren’t of interest at the moment or—more likely, I think—I’ll find a way to tell it that isn’t in my head yet.

Trusting oneself is an important aspect of writing. Otherwise you’re constantly in doubt and that makes it impossible to get the story down. If there’s a barrier to getting it done, you must work around it, dig under it, jump over it, ignore it, transport through it, but do not let it stop you from writing the rest of the story.